Zander’s red Jeep squeaks to a stop right in front of my motel room. I unclick the seatbelt and despite having the sense to know better, I chance a look at the ethereal creature in the driver’s seat.
I shouldn’t torture myself. I know I’ll only stir the needy part of me, resulting in a bout of internal tug-of-war. I want him so badly. I want to talk to him all night. I want to touch him. I want to listen to his short, choppy sentences. I want to find myself laughing at one of his jokes. I want to be touched. I want to be held. I want Zander, the man carrying my husband’s heart, to wrap me up in him. I want to pretend for a while that I can have Jake back in the form of Zander.
I’d expected that after my time visiting with him, while short, I’d be somewhat used to his striking features, but I expected wrong. Every time I lay eyes on him it’s like seeing him for the very first time and my reaction doesn’t waiver in the least bit. My heart stills then speeds, my eyes lock on, my stomach flips, and every molecule I’m composed of gets sucked in by the gravitational tether pulling me to him. My attraction to Zander is so much more than physical, though. It’s all of him, including the heart that is now, physically, his. He carries it. He is responsible for taking care of it, but it wasn’t that long ago that I slept beside that heart every night. I took comfort in that heart. My world revolved around that heart. He carries it now, but I’ve carried that heart too. I was once responsible for seeing that it was kept safe. Just in a different way.
Even with Jake’s passing, I’ve never felt free of that responsibility. I’ve stayed connected. I’m just as connected to that heart as I was the day Jake’s vital signs slowed then stilled completely. It’s the exact reason that I know making any sort of physical connection with Zander is dangerous territory for me. I’d immerse myself, lose myself in him for all the wrong reasons. It would be unfair to him and a sham for me. He isn’t Jake. Jacob Parker is gone. I have to cling to that knowledge.
“You know, you get a little line right here on your forehead when you think too much,” Zander says as leans closer. He lifts his hand slowly, reaching across to me like I’m a wild animal. I guess the similarities between me and a wild animal are pretty striking. I snap and snarl and bite. I run. I hide. I do just enough to survive. But I don’t live. Not by any measure.
I wish I could live.
He runs the pad of his index finger over the middle of my forehead, between my eyebrows and down the ridge of my nose. “You’re too pretty for that. Don’t think. Just be.”
“Hard not think,” I whisper softly.
“Not true. Let me prove it to you.” The mischief plays in his blue eyes and I’m near powerless to resist.
“And how do you plan on doing that?”
“Just trust me. Noon okay?”
“I suppose.”
“Okay, I’ll pick you up at noon!” he exclaims, wearing an infectious smile that I’d love to see a thousand times a day for the rest of my life.
I’m adrift in the current of Alexander McBride. It’s becoming more and more evident that my best hope is to go with it and hope that I don’t drown.
I take one more look at him, then push my door open and slip out. Zander doesn’t make a move to drive off until the door to my room clicks shut. I hear the engine rev as he puts it into first gear and zips out of the small parking lot. I peek out through the plantation blinds and watch his taillights disappear into the distance, realizing that the ache in my chest that I’m so used to has been joined by a new kind of ache.
A longing to be near Zander.
I take in a deep breath and head right back out the door so I can pay for another day or two of my room. I swing the door of the office open to see Dawn scowling, looking right past me, out to the dimly lit parking lot. I look at her, arch a brow, then turn to see what the hell she’s glaring at. The lampposts lighting spread enough light to see the flower bed nestled around the base of the small motel marquee. It’s a wreck. Mangled flowers are scattered across the pavement. Garden soil and scalloped-edged bricks are tossed about.
“Shit,” I mumble then look back to Dawn.
“That husband of mine ran over my flower bed again! He was in drive not reverse. He spends more time looking in that rearview mirror than he does looking forward. That’s what I always tell him. We spend too much time looking behind us and we end up crashing right into something beautiful and ruining it. I should just remove that damn rearview mirror from his truck. Don’t you think that would be a good solution to the problem?”
“Or confiscate his truck keys?”
“Yeah. I guess that would fix it,” she guffaws. Dawn smiles the most endearing, warm smile I’ve seen yet and it settles over me like a blanket. “Anyway, whatcha need, honey?”